Haunted Castles is the definitive, complete collection of Ray Russell's masterful Gothic horror stories, including the famously terrifying novella trio of Sardonicus, Sanguinarius, and Sagittarius. The characters that sprawl through Haunted Castles are frightful to the core: the heartless monster holding two lovers in limbo; the beautiful dame journeying down a damned road toward depravity (with the help of an evil gypsy); the man who must wear his fatal crimes on his face in the form of an awful smile. Engrossing, grotesque, and completely entrancing, Russell's Gothic tales are the best kind of dreadful.
RAY RUSSELL was born in 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, and served in the United States Air Force during World War II in the South Pacific. After the war, he attended the Chicago Conservatory of Music and eventually joined the editorial staff at Playboy, where he published such writers as Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Matheson, Jack Finney, Robert Bloch, and Charles Beaumont. His best-known work, 'Sardonicus', was called by Stephen King 'perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written'. He died in Los Angeles in 1999.
Title: Haunted Castles (Penguin Classics)
Author: Russell, Ray
ISBN: 9780143129318
Binding:
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Publication Date: 2016-10-06
Number of Pages: 272
Weight: 0.2178 kg
Russell links postpulp literature and the Grand Guignol tradition with the modern sensibilities of America in the 1960s . . . [He is] a fascinating combination of the liberal and the heretic. -- Guillermo del Toro
A sleek, compelling tale of diabolical possession that prefigures Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby * The Washington Post *
[A] sincere and subtle tale of ultimate evil that feels less dated than many of the works it inspired. * The Seattle Times *
With gripping clarity and incisive wit, Russell weaves a suspenseful plot that's more of an intellectual thriller than a horror yarn . . . The Case Against Satan retains its harrowing, relevant edge. * NPR *
